Accounting for the trend in trade union recognition in Ireland

Considerable controversy surrounds the issue of union recognition in Irish industrial relations. Academic commentators have sought to identify and explain the trend in recognition since the 1980s. Their arguments are examined and tested. No secular rise in non‐recognition is evident, and ‘individualisation’ and ‘union substitution’ are shown to add little to explaining the trend. No evidence is found that the trend reflects Irish employers pursuing union suppression and US‐employers pursuing union substitution. The significant development is a sharp rise in non‐recognition among new US employers. Their anti‐union animus does not, however, appear to be coupled with any distinctive or generalised union avoidance strategy.     

Consultants,lawyers, and the ‘union free’ movement in the USA since the 1970s

This paper provides a qualitative analysis of the services that the anti–union consultants and law firms have provided to American employers during the past three decades and an account of the campaign tactics of several ‘superstars’ of the union–free movement. It describes a multi–million dollar industry that has helped employers to circumvent the intent of federal labour law through a vast array of union–busting tactics, implemented before the union arrives and continuing until after it is defeated: tactics that are designed, at every juncture, to undermine employees’ free choice of bargaining representatives.     

British employer resistance to trade union recognition

Following the introduction of a statutory mechanism by which trade unions can gain recognition from employers, this article examines employers' attempts in Britain to resist campaigns for union recognition and to undermine newly granted recognition agreements. Using an array of primary and secondary sources, the extent and nature of these employer activities are documented. The article develops a revised schema, following Roy (1980), to help understand and interpret these anti‐union activities. While of significance in deterring and undermining new recognition agreements, these activities are found to represent a minority current in the overall response of employers to campaigns for union recognition.     

Employer responses to union organising: patterns and effects

This article presents original research on employer responses to trade union organising campaigns in the United Kingdom. The evidence indicates that there is no single response, with employers in some cases seeking to block and in others support union activity. These different patterns are strongly path dependent and reflect the prior degree of exposure to trade unionism of workplaces targeted for organising. Another finding is that employer responses co-vary with union approaches to organising, such that when the employer adopts adversarial tactics so does the union. The militancy of both parties, it seems, is mutually reinforcing. Finally, the evidence points to substantial influence of employer responses over the outcomes of organising. When employers are supportive then campaigns tend to be more successful, measured on a range of criteria. When the employer is hostile unions find it difficult to make progress and encounter particular difficulties in securing recognition.     

Law commentary: discrimination in union influenced employment recruitment

This article examines union influenced employers’ recruitment practices in the light of a recent Court of Appeal case. It argues that unions need to acknowledge traditional practices can, even unintentionally, be racist and sexist and that in order to defend union influence, those practices must change.     

Statutory union recognition in the UK: a work in progress

The 1999 scheme for statutory union recognition has been criticised for being too complex, and for leaving important matters unclear, for doing too little for workers and unions and for requiring too much from employers. The similarity to the US system has also been criticised. There were fears that attempts to achieve statutory union recognition would redirect the energy of trade unions in the UK to fruitless limbs, forcing unions and employers into antagonistic litigation. Although some of these criticisms are tenable, legislation seldom satisfies all parties affected by it, and all new legislation is haunted by the spectre of unintended consequences. Nevertheless, the system of statutory union recognition adopted in the UK strikes a reasonable balance between the interests of the rival parties and appears to function efficiently and, for the most part, fairly.     

Union exclusion—next steps

The Conservative Government has intensified its commitment to union exclusion policies: new legislation has been implemented and the state is being restructured. Parallel policies have been implemented by private employers. In consequence, collective bargaining has been devolved to subordinate unit level, and union recognition and membership has further declined.     

Engaging the professional: organising call centre agents in India

The extremely challenging external environment poses numerous challenges to union formation among call centre agents in India. Complicating matters is the acquired professional identity of call centre agents. In this scenario, the union organising call centre employees envisaged that partnership with employers was the only possibility acceptable to call centre agents, employer organisations and society at large, enabling them to regain some acceptability and credibility for the heretofore tainted Indian trade union movement.     

Third time lucky for statutory union recognition in the UK?

A third statutory trade union recognition procedure was introduced in the UK in 2000. This paper explores the scope for increased recognition, employers’ willingness to concede recognition, unions’ response to the procedure and, finally, the use of it so far. The paper concludes that, while the procedure may be sustainable in the long run, its direct impact on union membership and recognition may be minimal. The indirect effect, through voluntary recognition will be greater. But any reversal in union decline will ultimately be dependent upon successful union recruitment well beyond their conventional territories.     

Discipline,representation and dispute resolution—exploring the role of trade unions and employee companions in workplace discipline

This article reports findings that suggest that trade union representation both protects worker interest and also facilitates the informal resolution of disciplinary disputes. However, this is dependent on robust representative structures and high‐trust relationships with employers. Conversely, non‐union companions were found to have no substantive impact on disciplinary processes and outcomes.     

Union organising and Full‐time Officers: acquiescence and resistance

In the mid‐1990s, the TUC relaunched itself with a strategy for renewal labelled ‘new unionism’. The strategy had two strands: partnership with employers and the promotion among affiliate unions of grassroots union organising. The latter, heavily influenced by US and Australian experience, saw possibilities for a more radical trade unionism in the UK. This article draws on a case study of Unison to analyse the organising strand of new unionism. It identifies how top‐down approaches to organising are distorted by union bureaucracy for the priority of recruitment, not only limiting the possibility of emerging union radicalisation but also restricting the ability of trade unions to represent their members. The article also identifies that the position of union Full‐time Officers is complex and not necessarily within a uniform union bureaucracy juxtaposed to and restraining a more radical union rank and file.     

Whose wages do unions raise? A dynamic model of unionism and wage rate determination for young men

We estimate the union premium for young men over a period of declining unionization (1980–87) through a procedure which identifies the alternative sources of the endogeneity of union status. While we estimate the average increase in wages resulting from union employment to be in excess of 20% we find that the return to unobserved heterogeneity operating through union status is substantial and that the union premium is highly variable. We also find that the premium is sensitive to the form of sorting allowed in estimation. Moreover, the data are consistent with comparative advantage sorting. Our results suggest that the unobserved heterogeneity which positively contributes to the likelihood of union membership is associated with higher wages. We are unable, however, to determine whether this is due to the ability of these workers to extract monopoly rents or whether it reflects the more demanding hiring standards of employers faced by union wages. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Unions and the adoption of high-performance work systems in Korea: moderating roles of firms' competitive strategies

An unresolved question about the relationship between union representation and the adoption of high-performance work systems (HPWSs) is which factors affect the roles of unions toward the HPWS adoption. Using data from a 2009 multi-industry survey of 301 Korean firms, the author empirically examines the impacts of unions on the adoption of HPWSs. From the strategic choice perspective, he focuses on the roles of firms’ competitive strategies regarding the unions’ behaviors toward the use of HPWSs. The results indicate that Korean unions are negatively associated with the adoption of HPWSs when employers choose to implement more comprehensive HPWSs. Evidence suggests, however, that employers’ differentiation strategies moderate the union's negative impacts even when the employers comprehensively use the HPWSs. It implies that the differentiation strategy is a key factor to resolve the conflicts between unions and employers concerning the adoption of HPWSs.     

Does labor–management partnership deprive union members of activism toward their unions? Evidence from union members in Korea

This study aims to analyze whether partnership ideology really deprives union members of the willingness and passion to act for their union, resulting in union decline, and whether militant unionism, which includes adversarial ideology against employers is more effective for igniting members' activism for their unions rather than labor–management partnership. The survey data were obtained from union members working in Mechanical and Metal Manufacturers Complex, Changwon, Republic of Korea. Judging from the overall results of the data analysis, Kelly's (1996) claim that moderate unionism based on partnership ideology would undermine members' activism for their unions was not supported; on the contrary, partnership ideology had positive effects on both members' activism for their unions and decision-making practices. The difference between partnership and militancy is that militancy had an intensive effect on the narrow focus of union activities, but the impact of partnership achieved a better balance between participation in union activities and in management decision making.     

Labor education as a method of enhancing employee rights and responsibilities

University-based labor education programs conduct classes designed to provide union members with the skills necessary to perform their organizational and civic responsibilities and to provide union members with opportunities for personal growth and development. In conducting these programs, university labor educators enhance the protection of employee rights and the fulfillment of employee responsibilities. This article describes the manner in which labor education enhances collective and individual rights and responsibilities within unions, vis-à-vis employers and within the larger society.     

The union response to employer-initiated drug testing programs

The testing of employees for drugs has become a major workplace issue in the late 1980s. By all accounts, many firms have implemented, or at least considered, some sort of drug screening program. While various experts have debated the importance and necessity of initiating such programs, there has been only limited investigation of the differences between union and nonunion workplaces in how such programs are initiated and administered. This article investigates some questions related to those differences. The first part examines the differences between union and nonunion workplaces and their implementation of drug screening programs. We present differences derived primarily from the fact that nonunion employers are constrained only by constitutional and statutory law in their introduction and implementation of drug screening programs. Unionized employers, on the other hand, are constrained by collective bargaining and the grievance resolution process. The second part of the article examines union responses to employer-initiated drug testing programs. The third part examines arbitration decisions on drug testing provisions in unionized workplaces. We outline the major areas in which arbitrators have rendered decisions, including definitions of behavior that could trigger reasonable suspicion testing and whether the employer has the right to unilaterally institute or expand drug testing programs.     

The Limits of Statutory Trade Union Recognition

The paper assesses the prospects for Britain's new statutory trade union recognition procedure in the light of empirical evidence concerning union derecognition practice in the 1990s. It draws on 15 cases of union derecognition across a broad spread of employment, matched with comparable cases where recognition was retained. Inter alia it was found that a move towards more cooperative workplace arrangements, associated with a ‘partnership’ model of industrial relations, was common to employers in both categories. Against this background, we argue that it is far from clear that the current legislative strategy, in focusing on statutory recognition, is the best way of promoting partnership at work.     

The ‘newcomer’ MNC and the re-organization of national industrial relations actor network: the case of the Finnish food-retailing sector

This article looks at the institutional-level negotiations and configurations between a ‘newcomer’ multinational, the trade union and the association of employers. Developing a relational approach based on Actor Network Theory, the article goes beyond the currently used convergence and divergence perspectives by looking at the effect of MNCs on human resource and industrial relations systems as a process of re-organizing identities and power positions of the actors. A qualitative study on the case of the entry of the first international company (Lidl) into the Finnish food-retailing sector suggests that an international company tends to become positioned as an authorial representative of the global market forces, superior to the national actors. A closer analysis reveals, however, that the trade union is granted with some strategic discretion in the emerging actor network whereas the association of employers appears as the least powerful actor in the evolving configuration. At a general level, the analysis of the Finnish case underlines the importance of examining the MNC effect from a theoretical perspective that pays full attention to the complexities and particulars of the process. Implications for internationally oriented human resource management and industrial relations research are discussed.     

Achieving a new equilibrium? The stability of cooperative employer–union relationships

The current popularity of ‘partnership’ in workplace industrial relations raises the question of the durability of such arrangements. This article investigates the stability of cooperative employer–union relationships by means of case studies. It analyses perceptions of the experience of negotiation and consultation. Continuing net benefits are reported both by managers and by union representatives in workplaces where cooperative relationships are robust. The benefits come primarily from the informal consultative processes and levels of trust that are engendered. Nonetheless, parties to the relationship, however robust they were, faced substantial challenges to their efforts to diffuse and sustain cooperative working. It is concluded that cooperative relationships are likely to be stable where employers wish to maintain an independent employee voice, especially where workplace union density remains relatively high.     

Small firms and trades unions in services in the 1990s

With the decline in trade union membership it is essential that trade unions recruit employees in small firms in the service sector.* The theme of this article is whether unions can recruit in these firms. The interviews provide insights into the attitudes of employers and employees towards trade unions with possible policy implications.